Historiography- A Recent, Critical Study of Various Ways to Interpret Ancient India

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It is a pioneer work which seeks to delineate the development of historiography of the political history of ancient India in the modern period, specially in the post-1947 decades. Divided into thirteen chapters it discusses the approaches of modern historians to the pre-Maurya and Maurya dynasties, the post-Maurya dynasties of the Sungas and Kanvas, the ruling houses of the Indo-Greeks, Sakas, Pahlavas and Kushāņas, the post-Maurya dynasties of the Sātavāhanas, Väkäțakas and others, the imperial Guptas, Maukharis, Later Guptas and Pushyabhūtis, the post-Harsha political powers of north India up to Yasovarman of Kanauj and the post-Väkäļaka dynasties of the Deccan and the Far South including the Chalukyas of Vätäpi and the Pallavas of Kanchi. Shankar Goyal has very successfully delineated the changing pattern of the approaches of modern scholars of various schools Imperialist, Nationalist, Marxist, etc.-varying from chronological reconstruction to socio-economic concerns, as well as their attitudes towards various types of sources-literary, epigraphical, numismatic and archaeological. Such a comprehensive treatment of the problems of the historiography of ancient Indian political history, with emphasis on the works of historians who wrote in the era of Independence, makes this volume a pioneer, comprehensive and uptodate work on the subject.

Shankar Goyal, M.A., Ph.D., D. Litt., is the retired Professor of History, Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, and one of the well known authorities of ancient Indian history and historiography. Apart from numerous articles published in reputed journals, he has authored Recent Historiography of Ancient India, Marxist Interpretation of Ancient Indian History, Contemporary Interpreters of Ancient India, Ancient India: A Multidisciplinary Approach, 175 Years of Väkätaka History and Historiography, The 'Medieval' Factor and the Age of Harsha: A Cultural Study, Harsha Revisited: A Re interpretation of Existing Data, The Significance of Yuan Chwang in the Context of the Seventh Century: A Critical Assessment, State, Society and Culture: Early India 300 AD to 900 AD, and, more recently, The Classical Age: A Study in Feudalization. His books and many articles brought him encomiums from scholars such as Professors R. N. Dandekar, G.C. Pande, R. S. Sharma, Irfan Habib, Romila Thapar, R. Champakalakshmi, Shireen Moosvi, Kumkum Roy, A. M. Shastri, Bardwell L. Smith (Minnesota, U.S.A.), Walter M. Spink (Michigan, U.S.A.), Maurizio Taddei (Napoli, Italy), P. K. Mitra (Rajshahi, Bangladesh) and others. In 2009 Professor Goyal presided over the Cultural History Section of the XXIX Annual Session of the South Indian History Congress, in 2012 he was elected General President of the XXXVII Annual Congress of the Epigraphical Society of India, and in 2016 he was invited to preside over the Historiography Section of the XXIII Annual Session of the Tamilnadu History Congress. Recently in December 2017 he presided over Section I (Ancient India) of the 78th Session of the Indian History Congress held at Jadavpur University, Kolkata (Bengal). He was also invited by the Organising Committee of the 16th World Sanskrit Conference, 2015, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, to participate in the deliberations of their Epigraphy Section to promote Indian epigraphical studies on the world forum. He has also travelled extensively in China, Australia, United States, Canada, Europe, Sudan and Egypt.

Though there is unambiguous evidence to prove that ancient Indians did not lack historical sense, the fact remains that except only a few historical romances, puranic genealogies and the marvellous Rajatarangint of Kalhana (12th century A.D.), we have no historical texts in the modern sense of the term. So when occidental orientalists and historians took to reconstructing early Indian history in late eighteenth century A. D., they were bogged down with two difficulties viz. (i) lack of dependable histo- rical source-material and (ii) their ulterior motives born of a supe- riority complex. The first was gradually overcome to an extent by the discovery from time to time of archaeological data and the resurrection and critical evaluation of literary sources, especially after the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, but the second could not just be helped. They were bent on utilising Indian history to prove that British rule was benign and that before it India never experienced peace, prosperity and unity and that Christianity was the only true solace. Even the great orienta- list Frederick Max Müller was motivated in all his undertakings by the irresistible urge to bring home to the Indians the superiority of Christianity over all that ancient India had to offer in spiritual matters. The two-volume History of India by the Utilitarian James Mill published in 1817 and the subsequent historical writings of Elphinstone and Vincent A. Smith and several others reverberate with such ulterior motive which has vitiated their historical vi- sion. One of the most vicious creations of this perverse attitude is the so-called Aryan-Dravidian nexus which continues to haunt our historical vision even now and has done untold harm to the Indian nation. Let us admit, however, that all the Western Indo- logists cannot be castigated for this wilful distortion and there were a few who were completely free from this imperialist bias. Let us also concede our gratitude to these savants for making us alive to our great past.

Howsoever old may be the civilization and culture of the Indian sub- continent, its ancient history is as much like a discovery of modern age! Because there we find just some stories about our past as history mainly knit into our enormous religious literature, whether in the shape of Purānas or great epics or in the form of legends or folklores, in the absence of any scientific tradition of writing history in ancient period of Indian history. We do have to come down to the twelveth century A.D. to find out Rajatarangini of Kalhana telling us about the history of Kashmir from the time of Aśoka, the great Mauryan emperor, which has applied some scientific and relatively modern methodology of writing history. While discovering and defining sources of any event or period of history and their reliability in itself is a tedious exercise, saying/explaining anything against the popular notions further, becomes an issue of delicate handling of information. Things about ancient history have become even more complicated with the ideological assertions or biases/prejudices of Colonial historians, Imperialists, Orientalists, Nationalists, Marxist and Sectarian writers. Thus, it is a challenge to any scholar to review the modern historiography of ancient India with complete honesty and comprehension.